Flu Bug
by elfmaiden4legs
Summary: Re-upload of an old story of mine. Jack succumbs to a very unusual breed of the flu virus... a very unusual breed... a very deadly breed. As usual it is down to the team to take care of him.


**TORCHWOOD**

 **Flu Bug**

"Good morning Jack." Gwen chirruped in her rich Welsh accent as she entered the Hub early one morning to see her boss looking down at her from the scaffolding above – he didn't speak but nodded his acknowledgement as her cheap paper cup of sickly strong coffee filled the Hub with its stale aroma.

He smiled weakly and watched as she made her way over to her computer to start work for the day. The smell of her cheap drink drifted upwards and assaulted his nostrils, and he winced, trying not to consider the consequences if any evidence of the thick, sticky liquid remained by the time Ianto arrived.

As if sensing that he was still looking down at her she turned to look back up at him. He'd seemed unusually quiet that morning, and her concern was reflected in her expression, but he smiled, and she'd appeared significantly reassured and gone back to her work.

The truth was however that Jack was far from alright. He'd been up half the night, and if Gwen had taken the time to look at him for long enough she'd have observed his pale complexion and the slick sheen of sweat glistening against his blanched brow – but she'd been tired that morning and not as observant as she might have otherwise been, and so Jack had been able to slip slowly back into his office unobserved.

The alien creature they'd successfully tracked down the day before had until fairly recently been safely hauled up in the cells – although had not proven to be of such great company to Janet the Weevil. Pale and subdued, Jack had first noticed that something hadn't seemed quite right about the strange humanoid creature in the early hours of the morning. It hadn't appeared to have posed any imminent threat to the city, or even to individual human life, but even so had had to be contained, and he'd sat up with it half the night, observing its behaviour, sensing its evident distress – helplessly trying to decide what to do for the best.

It had only taken Jack three hours to develop symptoms, and he'd recognised immediately what was happening to both their other worldly guest and now himself – but by then it had already been too late. He'd spent the rest of the night coughing and sweating, and retching, exhausted by the time sunrise came, and by morning the infected creature had been dead.

He'd only just finished securing the alien visitor's body in the Torchwood vaults when his colleague had arrived.

Gwen didn't even realise that Jack was missing until she turned her focus away from her computer screen – noticing that everything suddenly seemed very quiet – and suddenly realised that she was alone.

She frowned, pausing for a moment to survey her surroundings and wondering to herself where Jack had gone – she didn't have to wait long for an answer. The eerie silence was suddenly broken by the sound of a vicious fit of violent, successive and choking coughs, reverberating throughout the empty chambers of the Hub, and coming from the office upstairs. This was immediately followed by a loud banging and a clatter.

Gwen was on her feet in an instant – her heart leapt into her throat as she realised immediately that something was terribly wrong. She raced up the stairs, taking the narrow metal steps of the staircase two at a time – and reaching the grated landing above with barely enough breath to spare.

As she pushed open the door to Jack's office, not even bothering to knock, she'd been even more alarmed at the sight of the pale and shivering figure of Jack scraping himself and an upturned pile of paperwork off the floor.

"Jack!" She exclaimed – hurrying to his aid before noticing for the first time how terrible he looked. "You look awful." She observed.

"I feel awful." He confessed.

He still had a handful of tissue pressed tightly to his lips as he spoke, and his speech was muffled as though his sinuses were heavily bunged up with cotton wool.

As he pulled the wad of thin and fibrous tissue away from his mouth Gwen could clearly see specks of blood mingled in with green and yellow mucus – she gasped.

"Oh Jack!" She exclaimed.

Jack's head throbbed painfully, his chest ached, and his stomach churned, his throat now felt as raw as sand paper, and no matter what he did to try and calm the convulsions of his chest he couldn't prevent the breath from catching in his dry throat, inflaming the delicate membrane of his infected lungs and making him cough and rasp violently – but somehow he managed to smile.

"It's probably not as bad as it looks." He reassured her, but she could tell that he was struggling to maintain a front.

"Maybe not." She responded – although she had her doubts – placing a palm to his warm forehead and flushed pink cheeks. "But we'd best let Owen take a look at you when he gets here, just to be on the safe side."

Jack didn't protest – he must be feeling ill she thought.

After much persuasion Gwen finally managed to get Jack settled back in his chair behind his desk. Despite her best efforts he simply refused to relocate himself to the sofa on the lower level – where she could keep a closer eye on him – or even to his own room where he could rest in a nice warm bed, but he seemed reasonably comfortable now, and so she set off to find him a drink of water, reluctant to offer him anything in the way of medication until Owen arrived.

She was worried however – she couldn't understand why this was happening to Jack of all people – this wasn't supposed to be possible, and the continuing echo of his violent chesty rattle only concerned her even more.

At least she didn't have to wait very long, as she stepped back out into the relative cool of the Hub – where the fresh air from outside was allowed to circulate more freely – she heard the familiar alarm of the giant cog closing, evidently behind someone's recent entrance, and looked down to see Owen surveying his surroundings critically – clearly confused by the emptiness of the normally bustling heart of the Hub.

"Hello?" He asked. "Is anybody there? Where is everyone?"

"Owen!" Gwen called from the balcony above. "Tosh and Ianto aren't here yet!" She explained as he looked up. "But could you come up for a second? I think you need to take a look at Jack."

"Why? What's wrong with Jack?" Owen asked.

Gwen shook her head. "I don't know." She confessed. "But something's not quite right."

"I'll get my bag." Owen sighed, and headed off in the direction of the medical bay, whilst Gwen set off towards the kitchens in search of a glass of water.

Jack didn't seem to even notice Owen as he entered the Captain's office a few minutes later – but Owen could quite clearly see for himself that something was very evidently wrong.

The Captain's complexion was startlingly pale and cheeks flushed with the fire of fever.

"Gwen tells me you're not feeling very well Jack." He explained as he entered.

Jack shivered.

"I'm fine." His teeth chattered as he spoke, and he swallowed hard as his words hurt his clearly sore throat – but he still managed a smile.

Owen made his way over, placing his black leather medical bag down on Jack's desk with a heavy thump which made the Torchwood Captain grimace with the pain it caused his already throbbing head.

"You're very hot Jack." He observed, placing a palm to his forehead to check Jack's temperature the old fashioned way before reaching for his wrist to check his pulse.

With this Jack suddenly started coughing again – a rattling, chesty rasp which wracked his entire body, each fiercely fought for breath clearly bringing agonising pain – and as he pulled another wad of wet tissue paper away from his mouth Owen noticed the mucus clearly spotted with fresh crimson blood.

"How long have you been coughing up blood Jack?" Owen asked, motioning for Jack to unbutton his shirt for him – which he did with shaking fingers – as he unwrapped a stethoscope from around his neck which Jack had previously unobserved, and placed it to Jack's chest.

"Not long." He sniffed.

At that moment Gwen re-entered with the glass of water.

"Breathe in for me please Jack." Owen instructed, as Jack struggled through the pain and obvious difficulty breathing. "… and breath out… and breathe in… and breathe out… and breathe in… and breathe out."

All the time he moved the small symmetrical disk over the circumference of Jack's chest – listening intently before moving onto his back. Once Owen had finished his initial examination Jack gulped the glass of icy water Gwen offered him gratefully – it significantly eased the sting in his throat, but made his aching stomach lurch suddenly as the icy liquid's chill proved to be just a little too much too soon, and Jack had to swallow hard as a wave of nausea washed over him.

"Well, you have quite a large build-up of fluid in both lungs Jack," Owen explained, "and I suspect a mild case of early onset pneumonia – both lungs seem to be quite severely infected – I'd suspect, based on your other symptoms, brought on by a bad case a flu – but I can't explain why it appears that this strain of the virus seems to have such a rapid gestation period."

"I think I can." Jack swallowed hard.

Owen frowned.

"That creature we caught yesterday was infected with a rather aggressive strain of a universal type flu." Jack explained. "I've only ever seen it once before, but its ten times worse than any of the generally far milder strains you've ever encountered here on earth – transmittable between individuals of almost any species, the only consolation here is that in this case this particular strain is not transmittable to humans."

"Then in that case how come you've been able to catch it?" Gwen asked.

"I'm 51st century Gwen – my genetic makeup is a little different to yours." Jack explained. "Believe me this tiny, seemingly insignificant planet has got a lot to look forward to in terms of interplanetary relations over the next few hundred years, every century or so DNA gets tweaked, genes end up being altered just slightly – but enough to bring about noticeable change in the next 3000 years!"

He sneezed, making his head spin violently.

"Where is this creature now?" Owen asked, wondering if it was still in the cells or whether Jack might have already moved it somewhere a little more isolated to prevent cross infection to the other Torchwood residents.

Jack sighed a melancholy sigh, closing his eyes and raising two slightly clenched fists to either side of his throbbing temples, massaging them wearily with the tips of his pale fingers.

By now his head and neck and both his shoulders felt as though they were on fire, and his eyes had started to burn just behind his eye sockets.

"I've secured the body in the vaults." He grimaced. "I'm afraid the creature died in the night."

Jack of course realised that he at least would not suffer the same fate as the poor aforementioned creature – he would not die – but even so the rate of the sickness continued to grow, attacking his body as it spread throughout his bloodstream, and making him feel increasingly worse by the moment as it slowly enveloped his system.

"Well, is there no cure?" Gwen asked.

With this Jack's eyes suddenly began to close however, and as his head lulled he hit his forehead of the edge of the desk as it fell.

"Jack!" He heard Gwen exclaim – she had seen what was about to happen before anything actually had, but not in time to prevent it.

Suddenly Jack felt the painful stabbing sensation of a bright light instantly assaulting his retinas, and the next thing he knew Owen was sliding something cold and smooth deep inside his warm ear canal – he shivered, resting his by now throbbing head against his two limply crossed arms. It was only when he heard the implement bleep a few moments later – revealing it to be of mechanical origin – that he suspected it to be an inner ear thermometer.

"109." Owen frowned. "God Jack, no wonder you're feeling ill, by rights with a fever this high you shouldn't even be conscious!"

"Is that bad?" Gwen asked.

Owen sighed, and shook his head. "Well it's certainly not good." He responded as he gently removed the thermometer, cleaned it, and slipped it back into a sterile sleeve, before continuing. "In most normal individuals a fever of 109 would probably be fatal. I don't want to go into too much technical detail, but essentially a fever this high would cease to be productive by killing off the infectious bacteria within the body and would begin to melt and therefore permanently damage the body's own enzymes, causing internal organs to shut down, leading to hallucinations, possible seizures, coma, and then finally resulting in death. As it is I am surprised that Jack is even as lucid as he is… even if this is Jack we're talking about."

As Owen spoke another fit of violent coughing wracked the Captain's lungs, and Jack immediately reached for the half empty waste paper bin underneath his desk – sensing what was about to come Gwen and Owen instinctively leapt out of the way, but when nothing happened and all that occurred was a successive fit of dry heaves which wracked the Captain's exhausted body they both returned to his unusually fragile form, and Gwen bent down beside him.

"I'm alright…" Jack choked. "It's alright… I'm sorry…"

"Ssh…" Gwen soothed. She spoke softly – reassuring and comfortingly – as though speaking to a sick child, and stroking her fingers in a soothing circular motion along the length of Jack's back to try and calm the violent fit which had gripped him. "It's alright…" She eased. "Don't be silly… we'll look after you."

When the fit finally appeared to have relinquished its hold she finally turned back to Owen.

"So, where do we go from here?" She asked.

"Well, we need to get his fever down for a start." Owen explained, as he unclipped the black leather medical case which had until now been sitting untouched upon Jack's desk since the moment he'd first entered the office, and removed a pallet of small white pills from a front compartment. "Paracetamol and anti-inflammatries should help though." He added.

"How about ice?" Gwen asked – she'd heard somewhere that ice could be highly effective when used to try and reduce a dangerously high fever, but Owen shook his head.

"Only to be used in a worse case scenario, and as a last resort." He sighed. "Iced drinks may not be a bad idea though throughout the next twenty four hours at least, but Jack is not in any imminent danger and an ice bath at this stage could potentially cause his body temperature to plummet leaving him vulnerable to hyperthermia." He explained. "I think a cool, damp cloth applied to the forehead, and a lukewarm shower every couple of hours or so is the safer option at the moment, and should help to make Jack feel a little more comfortable."

Gwen nodded.

At that moment the alarm sounded again below however, and the sound of two voices could be heard, one male and one female, signalling the arrival of Ianto and Toshiko. Owen at this handed Gwen the pills he'd been about to give to Jack and went out to greet them.

"Here." She said, offering her hand out as she handed them to Jack once Owen had gone, and watched as he swallowed the two white chalky caplets down with the last dregs of water from his glass, before leaning back in his seat – his eyes slowly closing, and holding his throbbing head in his hands.

She had to admit – he didn't look well at all.

"Thanks." He whispered.

"That's alright." She smiled.

With this Owen came back into the room and another set of footsteps could be heard running up the stairs, and then echoing along the grated metal landing outside as Ianto quickly followed the young doctor into the office, and closed the door behind them.

Ianto immediately stopped short at the sight of Jack – their usually so physically infallible, indestructible Captain – taken aback by just how sick he now looked – but Gwen smiled reassuringly.

"Right, this is the plan," Owen informed them, "Jack, you're going to stay at Ianto's place today, I've given him the day off so he can keep an eye on you – I'm sure the rest of us can cope with driving ourselves around and making our own coffee just this once. I don't want you anywhere where you might be tempted to work – you need complete rest for at least the next forty-eight hours, and I'll call in and see how you are tonight."

"Don't I get a say in any of this?" Jack sighed, swallowing hard to try and ease the burn of his increasingly sore throat.

"No you don't!" Owen snapped. "Besides, I thought you'd be delighted, the chance to spend an entire day with Ianto Jones, you two love birds, completely undisturbed." He teased. "Imagine the fun you could get up to!" But both men realised that he was only joking.

"Normally I'd be ecstatic." Jack croaked, but the playful half-hearted wink he directed in Ianto's direction with this was somewhat overshadowed by the heavy cloud of sickness now hanging over his head – even so the young Welshman returned the gesture.

"Come on Jack." Ianto spoke gently and began to make his way over, tenderly helping the Captain up out of his chair with this and wrapping a slim but deceptively strong arm around his shivering torso and waist to support him as he carefully assisted him into his greatcoat which had been loosely draped over the back of his chair. "I'll help you to the car." He offered.

Jack went with Ianto willingly and without protest, but as Gwen and Owen watched the two men leave Gwen looked across, deep into the young doctor's eyes and could tell that he was worried. As the group finally departed Owen made a promise to Ianto that he would call around later to check on Jack, and that if the Captain wasn't feeling any better stated there were a couple of tests he'd like to perform, and perhaps make a few changes to his current medication.

All were highly aware however that this was a highly unusual situation. None of them had ever seen Jack suffering in this way before, and it played heavily upon all of their minds that none of them, not even Owen, could possibly predict the long term effect this might have upon his body.


End file.
